Wolters Kluwer Health may email you for journal alerts and information, but is committed
to maintaining your privacy and will not share your personal information without
your express consent. For more information, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

The Speak Up blog features essays and poetry by people living with neurologic disorders and their caregivers. Readers can also find letters to the editor.

Friday, April 20, 2012

What Happens Next

Is the dark green canvas, wrapping polished maple, Is like a marina, floating gray folding chairs in wavesOver the high school graduation.Is the pianist, a gymnast, the valedictorian Who has come to own Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue.”Is a musician leaving the score to improvise,Only to return, most unexpectedly.

His hands and arms are often bandaged nowUp to the elbows:Underneath is a crust in places, but a laying onOf shimmering insects’ wings elsewhere.Purple islands of ink below,With their jagged yellow shorelines,Advance and retreat.

His eyes were once blue mirrorsOver airspeed and altimeter readings,Trusting in the continued, rugged vibrationOf the twin engines and in the winged, Rippling shadow over the Alaskan ice.

Now they are like cornflower sapphiresInside a streaked and foggy display case,With wet pearls growing, slowly,Off center, within.

His answer to the question of what he ate for lunchIs an orange coffee mug dropped on the tile kitchen floor.His dreams of scuba diving with his twelve-year-old sonHave become the chrome on his red 1940 Ford CoupeRusting off the Florida Keys,Surrounded by black bottles of frosted glassCovered in patches of coral, still growing.

His full medicine tray is craters on a white moon,Each with its own selected bits Of yellow, red or turquoise powder, compressed,Each waiting for the last pillOf my father’s day.